Bank of Korea Breaks 13-Year Streak With Gold ETF Purchase

The Bank of Korea has disclosed a $250 million position in a gold exchange-traded fund (ETF). The stake marks its first gold-linked investment in 13 years.

The move gives South Korea's central bank exposure to gold prices without expanding its physical bullion reserves.

Filing Shows a $250 Million Gold ETF Position

The BOK held 679,765 shares of SPDR Gold Shares at the end of June. The stake was valued at $250.4 million in a filing submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

That same document lists four holdings worth $3.89 billion in total. Gold accounted for roughly 6.4% of the disclosed portfolio. It reported no such position three months earlier.

Gold ETFs count as securities and are held within South Korea's foreign-exchange reserves. Physical bullion is treated as a separate long-term reserve asset. This means that the purchase leaves the official stockpile at about 104.4 tons, unchanged since 2013.

However, earlier in August, the central bank said it built a framework for domestic gold purchases, its first such step in almost six decades.

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